"A leap forward for the industry laced with the pitfalls of a pioneer"

Spore 8/10

10/10 Graphics - The beauty of using the creation tools in this game is that whatever you make will be nicely rendered and even the most ludicrous content you come up with will be animated fairly seamlessly to work in the world. The range of tools and ability to manipulate them are what gives the graphics of this game such appeal for me. The textures are well done and overall only a few aspects of the overlay are scrimped on. In the end, however, you do not really need that much detail in an overlay to make it completely enjoyable and futuristic.

7/10 Sound - While there is nothing wrong with any of the sounds on the surface after a while they can get very tiresome. There is only so long you can listen to the endless looping music of space in particular along with the pew pew of lasers and the very annoying and ever increasing Geiger-like radar noises.

8/10 Play Control - Some of the stages handle more clumsily than others and depending on how well designed your creatures limbs are they may walk like they have filled their pants. The space stage can get very repetitive having to constantly zoom in and out of planets with no double-click, quick zoom or fast travel options available for that.

9/10 Replay Value - You will definitely want to go back to your favorite stages to do it again, however the expansive nature of space may make you loathe to attempt to "complete" it with too many of your creations. Nevertheless, there are definitely enough things to do and create that you will want to try everything another way, particularly in retrospect. Many aspects can become very repetitive "rise and repeat" type of content.

Overall, this game has great appeal as a creation/sandbox type game. If you are the type of person who would much rather simply download things other people have created you are going to be missing out on a huge aspect of the game. However, if micro creations are simply not your cup of tea you can always terraform a planet or two. Unfortunately this gets repetitive in time. While the game is a huge leap forward for the industry as a whole there are numerous aspects that could be improved upon (hopefully patched, or fixed in an expansion) or expanded in a sequel. I look forward to seeing the industry trends down the road that were brought about by Spore.